It's harder than hell to find any information out there on this topic, isn't it?

One of the primary reasons I wanted to create this blog was to share my story. My son's story.

My son is on the autistic spectrum. He has also been diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and ADHD. It's quite the cornucopia. On top of that, he is dyslexic and has dysgraphia (difficulty writing). He has executive functioning issues. He has fine motor and gross motor difficulties. And if that's not enough: poor kid has a binge eating disorder.

My son is the one of the best people I know. He's kind, compassionate, gentle, polite, smart, and funny. The autism comes over him like a tidal wave and drenches my sweet boy, masking all those wonderful qualities. He got a tough row to hoe this time around. I wish I could fix it for him. But I can't.

We struggled through the toddler years and into the first few years of elementary school. Things really went downhill when he entered 4th grade. The larger class size and the amount of information he was expected to process quickly was completely overwhelming to him.

He'd always had behavioral problems in the home, but at school he really kept it together. Not so in 4th grade. He started shutting down: putting his head on his desk and staring at the floor completely unresponsive. Then the real fun started. He began acting out physically in class: rocking his desk, refusing to return his iPad and getting into a tug of war with the teacher. He even threw a rock at the principal and was suspended. That's a whole story unto itself.

After much ado, the school agreed to assess him. A cast of thousands administered test after test and they finally came to the conclusion that he needed to be moved into a special ed class consisting of nine kids, a teacher, two para-teachers, and a therapist. Honestly, at the time we were thrilled. We had no idea this type of classroom environment existed. We thought all our problems were over.

And then we entered the land of5th grade. A place where he intermittently started refusing to go to school. A place where they were giving him such a low level of work it was pathetic. A place where his behavior at home escalated and escalated...things were getting very physical and unsafe. Again, that's another story.

Fast forward to 6th grade...middle school. The happy wagon pulled into the station and the school refusal became chronic. March 1st was the final day he attended school that year. He refused to go entirely after that. Any consequences we enacted had no impact.

(Side Note: At 12 years of age, my boy was already clocking in at 5' 6" and right around 200 lbs. So you can see forcing him to go to school was not in the cards.)

Until January of this same year, I had never even heard of a residential treatment center. Once I did, I was horrified at the mere thought of sending my child away. What kind of parent was I? Why couldn't I figure out how to help him? At this point, we hired an amazing special education advocate. (Best money we've ever spent on this kid...hand to heart.)

In June, my son was hospitalized. At this point, our advocate recommended hiring a placement consultant. On the consultant's recommendation, we headed out to Utah to visit three schools. (Apparently, Utah has a plethora of treatment centers. It's also chock full of wilderness programs where a lot of kids start out before a transition directly into a treatment center.)

My son was accepted into our #1 school choice of the three. (Not all treatments centers are built the same. Different cultures. Different therapuetic focuses.)

At the end of July 2017, we hired a transportation service to take my son directly from the hospital to the treatment center.

We are thrilled with the school/treatment center. This one specializes in kids on the autistic spectrum. We've learned so much from our son's therapist about how to help him and ourselves. I swear this place is saving his life.

It was the hardest choice we've ever made as parents. It's been over a year and it's still the hardest choice.